It May Not Be Love, But Choose To Experience It Anyway

All my best friends would tell you that I have a type. Gorgeous men with crooked smiles who have stories that stretch far and wide. Men who you know have no intention to stay, because I carry that same undeniable trait in my own broken chest.

Maybe I like exploring a mind that seems as chaotic as mine. Or maybe it’s the rush of chemicals that fill my brain when their tattooed hands meet mine. Whatever it is, it isn’t love. But it is something undeniably weird and great. And I could run when everyone tells me to, but the sweat from my palms and the butterflies in my stomach choose to make me feel it all with a depth like the sea.

Because life moves so damn fast, and it’s okay to revel in something that has an expiration date. Something that paints a picture of shared laugher over whiskey that tastes like peanut butter, and long drawn out conversations about how the universe makes your choices for you.

It’s the freeing feeling of eating bagels naked in the kitchen, sipping coffee that tastes as sweet as the moments that came right before, tangled in one another’s legs. It’s telling each other the truth, even if that truth only lives in that short, beautiful moment.

Because people are like the moon, and we move in and out of phases. So it’s okay to experience someone in a phase that may not be forever — that’s where we learn the most about ourselves. It’s where we allow ourselves to crack wide open and connect with everything that lives underneath the surface level bullshit that they will most likely revert back to in the end.

Indulging in these fleeting moments may leave you hurting when it all comes to an abrupt halt, but it won’t be for long, so lean into it. Because how fantastic is it that humans can make each other feel in extreme ways? And that feeling fades quickly. The chemicals pulsing through your brain will slowly run their course, and you’ll forget what they smelled like. You won’t remember the words that are inked on their upper thigh or the grin that made your knees weak. But you’ll carry the experience with you forever, and maybe next time you’ll show up better. Your heart will understand complexity in a way you never did before.

So it’s okay to entangle with someone great and wild and beautiful in so many ways, even if they aren’t close to you forever. Shrug your shoulders and laugh when your friends tell you this is the same song and dance, just with a different face, and choose to feel it all anyway.

Someday these experiences will change, and it will all fall together exactly how it should, but that day doesn’t have to be today.

Get the best of Thought Catalog in your inbox.

Sign up for the Thought Catalog Weekly and get the best stories from the week to your inbox every Friday.

You're in! See you Friday.

You may unsubscribe at any time. By subscribing, you agree to the terms of our Privacy Statement.